Papa's got a brand new bike

Once per year, all ten of the city's bridges over the Williamette are temporarily closed to automotive traffic for the annual Portland bridge pedal. And although it wasn't easy to lever myself out of bed at 6am last Sunday in order to join the 25 000 or so cyclists en route, it certainly paid off in the end; the morning clear and cool. I teamed up with Leon and Linda for what we thought was the 8-bridge route, but due to poor signage ended up doing the full ten, around 36 miles start to finish. The view from both of highway bridges downtown was breathtaking; not something one normally has the opportunity to fully appreciate whilst negotiating four lanes of traffic at 50mph in the Mazda. Ditto the cruise down the far sides where I easily reached 30mph without pedalling on my new Trek Portland. Yes, a brand new bike; road-style with disc brakes and sufficient clearance for mudguards in the wintertime, skinny slicks, carbon forks etc but of course it was the "burned orange" paint-job which closed the deal. In the future, all transport will be ginger. I am simply leading the way.


Check It Out. With go-faster ginger chromatics.


Here I am amid the in-laws, the fair city behind me.


And here's the full view north-west from the Marquam Bridge that morning. The Hawthorne bridge that forms part of my ordinary commute is the that one on the right.

Before I forget, I think I forgot to mention that I experienced my first earthquake the other week. It was only a tiddly 3.8er about 20 miles away, but it was enough to wake and wobble me a little, though not quite enough to be genuinely unnerving. As if volcanoes weren't enough, I'm told a "big one" could strike the fair City of Roses pretty much anytime. And no, we don't have earthquake insurance.